


When We Were Eight

by InterNutter



Series: When We Were Us [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Balance Arc, Gen, baby twins, rough childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 14:22:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12772908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterNutter/pseuds/InterNutter
Summary: The twins realise that times are staying tough. They try to help out.





	When We Were Eight

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: TAZ:BA is pretty and I like to play with it. Hope I don’t break it on/for those marvellous McElroys.

Mother worked from Autumn to Spring, and summer time was Mother time. When Lulu and Koko returned home and helped with her harvests and foraging and canning and making preserves of all kinds. Autumn was the time of Uncle Tortie, of milking cows and feeding hens, and roasts and pickling things in sharp vinegar and setting apples in barrels to make cider when the winter came.

Winter was the season of Aunty Ques, who looked so much like Mother that other people still got confused. She was the one who taught them to read Common from cookbooks, and came over in midsummer for the twins’ birthday feasts. Aunty Ques was the best.

Winter was the season for cakes and bread and pastry, and turning inedible things into delicious goodness. Of pretending to be a witch or a potion-maker as gooey yuck turned into mouldable yum. And the air was full of baking spices and warmth.

And on candlenights, Aunty Ques let them have a glass of mulled wine each, which the twins would sip-and-swap until it was all gone.

Spring was the time for Uncle Ench. He made wands for people and shared his secrets, and taught the twins cantrips and level 1 spells. Lulu excelled at Produce Flame. Koko loved Prestidigitation because it even _looked_ like real magic.

He grew Hazel bushes and charged the twins with gathering up any dead hazel twigs. Showed them how to test them for usefulness.

“A wand is just a conduit,” he’d tell them. “It doesn’t need a fancy core or a special wood. You can make magic with any old hazel stick, if you have to.” Lulu’s exploded in sparks. “As long as it isn’t broken.”

Lulu jumped up and down with glee and went looking for broken ones on purpose.

That was the year that Koko noticed. Mother’s preserves - some of them - were in the pantries of their Aunty and Uncles. Aunty Ques’ bread was always in Mother’s kitchen, and a loaf always came, once a week, to the Uncles as well. Uncle Tortie’s eggs and cream and milk came to everyone else’s kitchens, too. And Uncle Ench always slipped Mother a few gold coins whenever they met.

Koko began to understand that it was a lot of effort to feed a pair of hungry little twins. Even ones who habitually ate off each other’s plate. And Mother was always tutting about their clothes. How they needed patching or how they were always being outgrown.

He spoke to Lulu about it as they were setting rabbit snares in the hedgerows like Uncle Ench taught them. And spoke in their personal tongue so that nobody else could butt in.

“Lulu…” he said, “[I think we’re expensive to keep.]”

Lulu frowned. “[Yeah. I see how the grownups feed us first. And how they’re skinny all the time.]”

“[What can we _do_? We don’t have all day like the grownups. There’s school and all.]”

Lulu thought about this as they wandered further along the hedgerows. Finding more places to lay traps. “[I don’t know if we can really… do… more. Every time we try, the grownups tell us to play.]”

“[Maybe…]” Koko had been thinking about this a lot. “[Maybe there’s some hidden treasure? The books are full of hidden treasures.]”

They searched every hole, burrow, and bunch of stones in Tre Llew-Ddion, that summer. But all they found were bruises and scrapes. And, on one occasion, a hornet’s nest.


End file.
